Satapatha Bramhana Part 03

SR No.: 007679
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2382
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 810

I, 23. COMMENTARY.
267
primarily designed to produce rain, and their employment here, secondarily, may be intended to put the patient into a sweat. The point is problematic and not cleared up by the scholiasts.
The entire hymn is repeated with variants at Tait. Br. II, 4, 4, 1. 2. The third stanza of the next hymn is there added to the charm.
Both this and the next hymn have been translated by Weber, Ind. Stud. IV, pp. 416 ff.; Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, 506, 509; Grill?, pp. 19, 77 ff.; cf. Wise, Hindu System of Medicine, pp. 258 ff.; Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 391; and Bergaigne et Henry, Manuel Védique, p. 135. The Anukramani designates I, 23 as vânaspatyam, and I, 24 as åsurîvanaspatidevatyam.
Stanza 1. Sayana refers the adjectives dark, &c., to the plants, indicated by Kausika's commentators. The word ragani (as well as all others designating night) has also the meaning 'curcuma longa. Cf. the scholiast at Tait. Br. II, 4, 4, I, rañganakshame oshadhe ... atra haridrà raganisti kekit. The two meanings are blended with the idea of
rich in colour,' by virtue of which the word puns with ragaya.
Stansa 2. b. A considerable number of MSS., here as well as in 3 d, followed by Sayana, read prithak for préshat, which also makes good sense. The Tait. Br. also reads préshat.
. This seems to be addressed to the patient: his natural colour shall return to him. Grill takes offence at the parenthesis and proposes to refer sváh to the plant; cf. also Ludwig, and Bergaigne et Henry, 1.c., note. But the plants are of a colour different from the leper's spots (hence their virtue), and svál is inappropriate. Såyana, as in our translation, he rugna ... svakîyah pråg avasthito varnah.
Cf. Aufrecht, Festgruss an Otto von Böhtlingk, p. 3.
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